Awards

On Thursday 24 November 2022 Oldham Camera Club held their annual Open Mono DPI Competition. This year Oldham Camera Club lost two of its long serving members, Andrew Kay, and Stephen Riley to bowel cancer and so the club decided to use the competition as a vehicle to raise some funds, in aid of the Christie Cancer Hospital and Dr Kershaw’s Hospice.

The event was conceived as an attempt to try and raise at least five hundred pounds to help support these incredibly important organisations and to show that a hobby, like Photography, which is generally perceived to be a passive activity practiced in the community, can be used in a pro-active way to help support that community.

The competition attracted entries from 21 clubs from across Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire, West and South Yorkshire, Staffordshire and even as far afield as West Sussex and as this article is being prepared to go to press, the total sum raised to date is eleven hundred pounds (£1,100.00)

These days Oldham Camera Club comprises a small but friendly and dedicated group of members and organising an event like this is impossible without calling upon the support of external parties and in this regard, Oldham Camera Club would sincerely like to express its thanks not only to the members of all twenty one clubs who supported the event, by entering the competition and generously donating to the fund, but also to OM-Systems (formerly Olympus Imaging UK) and the Cross Street Branch of the London Camera Exchange in Manchester, who very kindly and enthusiastically agreed to provide the generous prizes for which individuals competed. Also, of course to Gordon Jenkins, former L&CPU President, who very kindly agreed to judge the images and to John Smith from Focal Points, for helping publicise the event.

Special mention and thanks must be made also be made to the members of the Warrington Photographic Society for their very generous donation on behalf of “Bob Robinson”, who sadly lost his battle to cancer last year, whilst also serving as the President of the L&CPU. Bob was, for many years the face of the L&CPU Competitions, as well as being a committed members of Warrington Photographic Society and a gentleman, who will be sadly missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing him.

Also, to Preston Photographic Society, for a most generous donation, paid directly to the charities concerned and which has been included in the declared total of £1,1000.00 raised to date.

And to our Sponsors OM Systems & London Camera Exchange, who most graciously donated the prizes for the winning Images and help to make this competition the success that it has been.

Initial feedback from the clubs who took part is that everyone enjoyed the event. So much so, they are already asking if Oldham Camera Club can host something similar next year!!

As to the competition itself. Gordon was asked to judge 147 images from the 21 clubs taking part. Gordon declared the standard of images he saw to be good and, in some cases, to be of very high standard and that he was not going to have an easy night deciding on the winners. With the first image up, scoring a respectable 17 points out of a possible 20, it was obvious that this was going to be a very close-run competition and so it proved to be. At the end of the process, Gordon held back 21 images for further comment, declaring that any one of these had the potential to be in with a chance of winning one of the 5 prizes on offer.

The Final Club and Individual Placings were as follows:

Club Results

First Place: North Cheshire PS

Joint Second Place: Ilkley Camera Club & Wigan 10

Fourth Place: Oldham Camera Club

Individual Image Results:

First Place: “Skyfall” By Grant Hirst (Oldham Camera Club)

Second Place: “Follow my Leader” By Janey Lazenby (Wigan 10)

Third Place: “Telling a Tale “By Rob Hockney (North Cheshire PS)

Highly Commended: “Big Six” By Tim Gilbert (Preston PS)

Commended: “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy” by Lynda Haney (Wigan 10)

Oldham Camera Club would again like to take this opportunity to again thank all those clubs and their members, who so enthusiastically decided to support our efforts to raise much needed funds for the Christie Hospital and Dr Kershaw’s Hospice, to Gordon Jenkins for his entertaining judging of the images, to the OM-Systems and the LCE who provided the prizes. Also, of course to offer our congratulations to North Cheshire PS on their club win and to the winners of the various individual prizes, not least our own Grant Hirst, on the winning first prize with his landscape image “Skyfall”

1st Place – By Grant Hirst -Oldham Camera Club

2nd Place- By Janey Lazenby – Wigan 10

3rd Place – By Rob Hockney – North Cheshire PS

Highly Commended – By Tim Gilbert – Preston PS

Commended – By Lynda Haney – Wigan 10

14/12/2022: OCC MONO DPI PRESS RELEASE – FINAL VER.